Pleases and thank yous have always peppered my interactions with my voice-activated tech (as well the sporadic how are you, and I appreciate you); my habit of treating tech with respect is my way of living in gratitude. This practice has never felt odd to me, and after reading Scary Smart, I know these acts of kindness help to positively influence our AI. Author Elizabeth Day sums it up perfectly when she says of the book that it’s ‘an enlightening education in how to be human’. I want to model to my children that the service of others is not something we are entitled to. I don’t want them to start internalising superiority towards others. Perhaps AI and tech holds a mirror up to humanity and shows us the best and worst of ourselves. Mindfully cultivating a positive relationship with our tech can have a knock-on effect on how we treat each other.

By Mo Gawdat who is the former chief business officer of Google [X], an entrepreneur, and bestselling author of Solve For Happy: Engineering Your Path To Joy (Pan Macmillan, £10.99). Through his 12-year research on the topic of happiness, he has created an algorithm to reach a state of uninterrupted happiness, regardless of the circumstances of your life. mogawdat.com